just lines on a map

the last few days i've been thinking about something. it sparked when a guy i was trekking asked me if my guide was indian. 'he sure looks like it,' he said. to that i said he was brahmin, and that they are essentially india. 'really, it's just lines on a map,' i said. and this got me going.

imagine the differences in lives because of a long wavy black line that separates one country from another. this was clear to me in certain areas of my annapuran trek. i came across a group of ethnic tibetans that were as wealthy and prosperous in every area of life as any i've ever seen. some owned houses in 2 or more places and vacationed in europe. this was all thanks to special trading rights granted to them hundreds of years ago. but just across the border, about 250 kilometers north, their ethnic brethren toil away as nomads, never washing, eating the same meal every day, and certainly never seeing more than photos of europe, much less kathmandu. what a difference a line can make.

i just finished dave eggers' 'what is the whay?,' a sort of sarcastically fictionalized memoir of a man who escaped the civil war of sudan and resettled in the u.s. this too made me thing of the importance of a little ink on a page. in the book he describes the fatal mistake the southern sudanese made in joining the northern in the middle of the 20th century. they were duped he said. they decided to be a united sudan with the muslim arabs of the north, while they were african catholics. more or less, from then on they had suffered at the hands of the khartoum government. because of a line on a map. now, maybe they would have suffered in a similar way anyway, but that is no matter to me.

it really is a strange thing, the power of maps. they decide who is what. they determine our prospects of a future. take me, for example, growing up so close to the mexican border. many times i have been to the other side and seen the difference. and i have seen countless mexicans risk their lives to cross an ink line for better future. what if i was born on the other side? who would i be? what would i be doing? maybe painting houses in san antonio. maybe i'd be a shepherd in jalisco. or a maybe i'd still be pursuing a graduate degree, but in mexico city. all the same, it would be a different life for me. sorry to get preachy and all, but i've think it a very interesting thing to consider.